Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb Here. A good birdwatcher can identify the local species not just by sight, but also by sound. It's something the Audubon Society calls birding by ear. With practice and a good field guide, avian enthusiasts learned to recognize the trademark tweets, cheeps, and hoots that various birds omit. Mastering this skill requires a basic understanding of how and
why are feathered friends communicate. Often, a given species will use its own distinctive set of sounds, like mating calls and territorial threats to get assorted points across. Take the rock pigeon. These guys cord each other with gentle coups and too signal distress. They use a harsh grunt. If an individual rock pigeon is to survive and procreate, it must be able to recognize both vocalizations. But do what pigeons noises mean anything to passing crows or cardinals? Can
birds understand the calls made by other species? We recently discussed this topic with Robert de McGrath, an ornithologist and behavioral ecologist at the Australian National University. McGrath has co authored multiple studies about interspecies communication in birds. Much of his research has dealt with avian alarm calls. These are the warning cries that birds send out when a predator
is cited. As McGrath tells us via email, just about every bird species we have studied locally respond to other species alarm calls, and we suspect eavesdropping on other species calls is widespread around the globe. Perhaps this is not surprising, given that almost all species are vulnerable to predators and so should use any available cues that predators are around. One good example of this phenomenon can be found in the relationship between black capped chicken eas and redbreast a nuthatches.
The two songbirds have much in common. Both species are indigenous to North America and attain similar sizes. They're also a wary of raptors. When chicken ees see a gosshawk owl or some other winged predator, the birds issue an alarm call. Like the t s A, their warnings recognize different threat levels. High pitched seat calls are used to tip off other birds about a raptor that's flying far overhead. The eponymous chickend e d cry rings out whenever a
perched raptor is seen nearby. Extra d s are added if a killer looks especially dangerous. Research has shown that other birds, like red breasted nuthatches, understand the chicken eese warnings, and with close listening, they can decode the exact degree of danger that's being advertised in these alarm calls. Clearly, eavesdropping has its benefits. Alarm calls can even trigger a
response from non avian listeners. The tough to tipmouse, for example, is a songbird whose anti raptor warning cries send squirrels and chipmunks running amazingly. These mammals are known to spread the distress signal by imitating it with their own voices. Sparrows, cardinals, and jays will also mimic the tipmouse's signature alarm call. Thus,
an interspecies chorus heralds the arrival of an oncoming threat. Okay, so do birds just have an innate understanding of other species alarm calls or do they pick up the skill over time? McGraph says that at least in some cases, certain birds actively learn to identify the cries, superb very wrens are a common sight on the Australian National University campus in Canberra. As it happens, the school grounds also received plenty of visits from a gray bird known as
the noisy inner. According to McGrath, there's a botanical garden across the street where the wrens like to hang out, but the miners avoid it. In one of his studies, he was able to demonstrate that superb fairy wrens who lived on campus fled when a recording of minor alarm calls was played. However, the wrens at the botanical garden, where again no miners are present, did not react to the same recording. This strongly suggests that interspecies call recognition
is an't innate, it has to be learned. McGrath notes we've subsequently even trained fairy wrens to recognize novel sounds as alarm calls by pairing them with the presentation of gliding hawk models, which unequivocally shows learning Alarm calls aren't the only vocalizations that can transcend species. It's common for birds to recognize other birds species sounds if there's some
benefit to recognition. McGrath said. Some species defend territories against members of others species and respond to their territorial song. Others can recognize contact calls, which helps them form mixed species flocks and find food. And then there's the cuckoo and notorious brewed parasite. Females lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, who are then sometimes tricked into
raising the cuckoo's chicks to pull off the charade. Baby cuckoos imitate the begging cries made by infants of the host's own species, but these sorts of imitable cries aren't made by single species alone, like chicken ee. The name cucka Bara is on Amano Peak. It's derived from the world famous cackle made by these birds. Hollywood seems obsessed with their exotic laugh. Cucka Bara cries can be heard in the background of such films as Raiders Have Lost Arc,
The Naked Gun, and assorted Tarzan movies. Today's episode was written by Mark Mancini and preduced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other barrier busting topics, visit our home planet how Stuff Works dot com.